“Monday’s fighting at the Cotopaxi No 1 jail in Latacunga left 15 people dead and 21 injured,” Ecuador’s national prisons agency Snai said in a statement.

Among those killed in the riot is an alleged drug gang boss, Leandro Norero who was arrested in May on money-laundering charges, according to local media reports.

Ecuador is in between Colombia and Peru, which are the world's two largest cocaine-producing countries.

It is severely affected by international drug trafficking and gang violence which is related to that.

 In 2021, about 300 inmates were killed in riots in Ecuadorian prisons. (ILKHA)